A spirited discussion of the state of higher education, the history of criticism, and the future of literary knowledge production, recorded with a live audience at University of Pennsylvania's English Faculty Lounge as part of the annual Penn English Department Lecture, delivered this year by Christopher Newfield.

Cast (in order of appearance): James English, Christopher Newfield, Matt Seybold, Whitney Trettien, Jenny, Zachary Lesser, Mark Algee Hewitt, Kerry McAuliffe, Eilis Lombard, Laura McGrath, Qing (Ruby) Liao

Date Recorded: October 22, 2025

Music: Redd Holt & The Heptet

Sound Engineering: Brian J. Kirk

For more about this episode, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/Penn25

A chance to reflect, with journalism professor Jeff Sharlet, on his book, "The Undertow: Scenes From A Slow Civil War," the looming threat of acceleration, the methods and media of lingering, documentary modernism, and monsters within.

For a bibliography of this episode, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/Lingering

The finale of "A Tale of Today," the eleventh season of "The American Vandal."

Matt Seybold offers his journey of curiosity from the end of "Criticism LTD" to "The Technofeudal Text."

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Nathan Wolff

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com/CruelFuturism

Remastered audio of Fredric Jameson's second lecture at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society sponsored by the Marxist Literary Group and hosted by St. Cloud State University.

For further context, consider listening to "The Jameson Tapes" episodes which precedes this episode in The American Vandal Podcast feed, as well as the first lecture in the series, "Models of Ideological Analysis."

For a bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com

The second episode contextualizing Fredric Jameson's lectures at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society begins with a discussion of Jameson's controversial efforts to resuscitate György Lukács. From this begins a conversation about moment of high theory into which the Institute was inaugurated and the connection of that moment to the more recent method wars [24:00] , the specter of Foucault in Jameson's work [54:00], and how Jameson's models of ideological analysis intersect with his narrative theory and its centrality to Marxist practice [64:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Caleb Smith, Anna Kornbluh, Matt Seybold, Fredric Jameson, Isabel Bartholomew, Robert Tally

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

Remastered audio of Fredric Jamesons opening lecture at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society sponsored by the Marxist Literary Group and hosted by St. Cloud State University. For further context, consider listening to "The Jameson Tapes, Side A" which precedes this episode in The American Vandal Podcast feed.

For a bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.Substack.com

The first of two installments contextualizing Fredric Jameson's lectures at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society begins with a discussion of "Marxism & Historicism," followed by conversations about historicizing the lectures [8:00], the process of recovering them [33:30], a key passage about commodity as its own ideology [55:00}, and the long arc of Jameson's thought and influence [71:30].

Cast (in order of appearance): Robert Tally, Matt Seybold, Anna Kornbluh, Caleb Smith, Fredric Jameson, Isabel Bartholomew

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

Analysis of the Gilded Age tropology of alienation precedes discussions of Hubert Humphrey & Tim Walz [9:00], the reception of "Hillbilly Elegy" and its aftermath [38:00], and "The Mismeasurement of Orcs" [78:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Andie Tucher, Samuel Freedman, Douglas Dowland, Dan Sinykin, J.D. Connor, Robert Tally

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheAmericanVandal/Spitesgiving, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

A so-called Spreadsheet Man responds. Does the institutional turn have a distinctly feminine ethos? [27:30] How is it rooted in the Post45 Collective? [49:00] What are its debts to New Historicism and Marxist Literary Criticism? [69:00] And to Fredric Jameson? [84:30] And what has become of Economic Criticism? [94:00]

Cast (in order of appearance): Dan Sinykin, Matt Seybold, Brandon Taylor, Rachel Sagner Buurma, Laura Heffernan, J. D. Connor, Alexander Manshel, Fredric Jameson, Leigh Claire La Berge

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheAmericanVandal/SpreadsheetMen, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

Our ideology critique of contemporary tech fascist SciFi begins with the first selections from Fredric Jameson's 1977 seminar at the Institute On Culture & Society, followed by a journalists narration of the tech fascist turn in Silicon Valley [10:00], ideological analysis of Alt-Right speculative fiction [37:00], and technofeudal yearning to convert probability to prophecy [70:00].

Cast (in order of appearance): Fredric Jameson, Matt Seybold, Jacob Silverman, Jordan S. Carroll

Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective

Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio

For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Mutants, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com